The one that got away.....and then you got it back!

[Throttlesteer]

Amidst the hobby chaos, I wanted to share a positive story. I briefly mentioned this card in another post several weeks back. But, there's now more to the story. When I was in college, I worked for a sports cards store and collected mainly hockey and some current (at the time) baseball and football. My boss used to show me some of the neat, vintage pre-war stuff he would pick up. One day, he showed me this really cool, bright orange Cy Young card. It wasn't in the greatest shape and it certainly wasn't centered. But the colors were vivid and it just looked awesome. He agreed to let me buy it and essentially put it on "layaway" while I paid $50 out of each paycheck. I eventually sent it off to SGC and it ended up coming back a SGC 40. Subsequently, I ended up trying to build the E101 set and got about 2/3 of the way there. The story goes south there and I ended up having to sell everything off due to a divorce. I look back and the one card that I miss the most was the Young (I had the Cobb, one of the Wagners, etc..).

I've seen the very same Young pop up once or twice for sale, but always lost out with the runner-up bid. I managed to find a nice SGC 5 Dockman Young and the price was right, so I bought it to fill the void. It's a great card, but it still wasn't the E101 Young. Two weeks ago, a board member put my old E101 Young up on Ebay and I ended up winning it back. Having bought the card over 25 years ago and losing it 10 years later, I'm excited to finally get it back. A big thanks to Moonlight Graham (Joe) for making it available. He had since reholdered it in a new SGC holder, but it still looks just as awesome as the first day I saw it.

What was your one that got away, that you got back?

[AGuinness]

Congrats! That's a great story (except for the divorce part). It's great that the card is now back in your hands!

[Throttlesteer]

Thanks, here it is with the E92 in the new SGC holders. I would love to do a back run, but the cost would be paralyzing.

[x2drich2000]

Anson, depending on what you consider the back run to be, it could either be not that bad, or nearly impossible. The Young might actually be the cheapest and easiest HOFer to make a complete run of the standard backs. From the standard backs, the Nadja is easily the hardest and the Mello-mint is actually not hard at all, just expensive due to the majority of them being mid-grade. Add in that there isn't any D303, Mino, VE, Red Croft, etc and it actually starts looking not so bad. The problem is if you consider the Prize Fighter back part of the run, that will be a significant issue.

DJ

[Throttlesteer]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

Anson, depending on what you consider the back run to be, it could either be not that bad, or nearly impossible. The Young might actually be the cheapest and easiest HOFer to make a complete run of the standard backs. From the standard backs, the Nadja is easily the hardest and the Mello-mint is actually not hard at all, just expensive due to the majority of them being mid-grade. Add in that there isn't any D303, Mino, VE, Red Croft, etc and it actually starts looking not so bad. The problem is if you consider the Prize Fighter back part of the run, that will be a significant issue.

DJ

The E90-1 Cleveland is pretty tough too. I appreciate your insights!

[yanks87]

I grew up collecting cards in Central New York, the son of antique collector/dealers, I was always on the look out for the elusive box of goodies. In the early 90's there was a Baseball Card auction in Interlaken, NY, I knew very little about "old" cards, but I knew what tobacco cards looked like, so I used all my summer earnings and bought as many as I could. Average price was $15 per card, even though I didn't know the players yet. After spending a HUGE number of $300, my day was done, as we were walking out a 1933 Babe Ruth Goudey #144 came up. My father offered to loan me the cash, but I was happy with my haul. It sold for $225. As I started to research the cards that I had won, I looked at the value of the Babe that I passed on. Immediately, I felt horrible. My father explained that all collectors have the "ones that got away," and I just received mine (though two year later i walked away from a first appearance of Spider-Man for $199, I was a stupid kid).

Fast forward 20 years, I moved to Oregon and was still searching local estate auctions for any diamonds in the rough. Lo and behold, 1933 Babe Ruth #144 at a dumpy little auction house in the sticks. I was sure that I wouldn't be able to score it, but thought I had to go and bid in order to try and right an old wrong. It was the only card in the sale, and it seemed for ever until it came up, and it when it did I had to stand I was so excited. Bidding ended as soon as it started, and the Babe sold, for $375, to me. I was SO excited that I had finally be able to bring that one home.

[bnorth]

Wrong era of cards but was insanely happy to get this one back. It is one of the few real(most are altered) missing yellow cards I have seen.

I was looking to sell it and a few other cards to pay for a bigger purchase last fall. I figured with the awesome Roberto Clemente thread on here it would do good in the live auction section. WOW was I wrong and about cried when I basically gave it away. Luckily a long time hobby friend won it. He was selling some stuff to finance a killer bat so i hit him up and he was nice enough to sell it back to me for what he paid.

[hcv123]

I don't know how many years ago now - probably about 25 - a fellow collector alerted me to a gentleman who worked for general mills who had in his possession original art from the 1962-63 Post and Jello sets. He was not a collector but understood what he had was unique. I made him what I thought was a very strong offer for the whole collection. He told me he wanted like 10X what I offered him as they were each "1 of a kind". I spent some time with him and did my best to explain that one of a kind does not equal priceless in the baseball card world. I followed up a couple of times to no avail. Fast forward about 10-15 years from then and they show up in a Mastro auction. I win the 1963 Jello set (minus the Aaron - that story is in another thread somewhere on the board) and the 1962 Post Clemente art. I got them for something close to what I offered the guy years earlier!

[jchcollins]

For me, it was the 1948 Leaf Ted Williams. I had one in the pre-grading days that was really nice, probably would have been a PSA 6 - that I foolishly let slip away. I can’t afford anything near what a 6 would bring today, but I was able to replace it with an eye-appealing PSA 2.5 earlier this year. So that’s at least one major card from my past where the sting of loss is gone now. There are others, but for me this was the one I always thought of.




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[drcy]

I bought and sold a baseball painting twice, with the painting hanging twice in the spot in my home. And I made a profit from both sales! I got it cheaper the second time too.